Reap the Whirlwind
by Rhaella
Summary: If he couldn’t walk away when Mello was just a voice on the phone, he certainly can’t walk away now. Matt/Mello.


**Reap the Whirlwind**

_i_

He should've smashed the damn phone against a wall as soon as he got that blasted call, he decides. Should've told Mello to run elsewhere with his lunatic plans and his empty promises of vengeance. Should've turned back to his games and his boring day job and forgotten the whole mess.

Really, he should've done just about anything but_ this_.

But Mello has always had a way with words. (An _interesting_ way, sure, since he'll make you want to kick him in the mouth, but at the end of the day you still think that maybe you'll follow him off a bridge.) And Matt, well… he guesses he wasn't doing much of anything anyway.

Matt glances briefly out the window, watches as the world spins away beneath him. About an hour left before landing, and he pulls out his cell phone, flips it open, and starts playing Tetris. He'd light a cigarette to help pass the time, but he's really not too keen on giving the stewardess any more of a reason to want to kill him. From what little Mello was willing to tell him, he suspects there'll be enough of that in the days to come.

At the moment, however, he isn't too intent on thinking about those days to come. For now, he's happy enough just to watch the blocks fall and punch the buttons as fast as he can. He tries to forget that he _hates_ Tetris – that it's not about winning so much as staying alive for another minute before the blocks (inevitably) cut you off entirely, and that… that's a little too close to reality for Matt's tastes.

He can't help but wonder what it'll be like when this is no longer make-believe.

_ii_

"About fucking time," are the first words out of Mello's mouth when Matt finds him, as if there had never been any doubt that he'd be coming. As if he hadn't jumped on the first plane out of Melbourne (where he'd been living ever since he ditched the orphanage) as soon as he'd gotten that damn call.

Mello is standing by the mouth of an alley, tearing open a candy bar as avidly as if it's the most fascinating thing in the world. He's leaning against the side of a building, slight and slender like he's half a child and half an adult – some twisted_ something_ that never got the chance to set itself straight and now probably never will.

Matt doesn't like the impression. Especially when Mello's so deep in the shadow of the building that he can barely see him at all.

(Back at the House, Mello had been about as inconspicuous as a flash fire, and it's unsettling to see him hiding now, even like this. Five years ago, Matt would never have thought him capable of it, but…

Well, things change. He wonders how much has remained the same.)

Matt pulls his lighter out of his pocket and absently starts to play with it. "Yeah, well."

Undaunted by anything as simple as an awkward pause, Mello pushes himself into the sunlight, and yeah, this is Mello alright. The same uncompromising, liquid swagger. The same smirk. The same ridiculous, over-the-top clothing (and Matt knows that's going to be dangerous for someone trying to lay low, but to change is to accept defeat, and Mello has never been able to do that).

But then Mello turns_ just so_, and Matt sees that really, nothing's the same at all.

He's seen war injuries less extensive, and then he realizes that, when it comes down to it, that's exactly what this is. War. The stakes have changed. Defeat means more than disappointment or a disapproving word, and the proof of that is written plainly across Mello's face.

He tries not to stare – Mello will punch him in the face if _(when)_ he notices – but a disfigured, dishevelled Mello isn't something he's sure he knows how to deal with, and he's certain the changes run far deeper than just that.

Matt fumbles for a cigarette to cover himself (even these little habits have their uses, but hell if Mello doesn't realize that as well) just as Mello starts to speak. "Listen," he begins, and what follows is more a disjointed stream of consciousness than anything else. A_ brilliant_ disjointed stream of consciousness, but all the same. Matt has never much cared for connect the dots.

And so he asks, "What the hell is going on here, exactly?"

And Mello tells him, and when he's done, Matt can't help but laugh. Mello's staring at him like he's grown a new head (and isn't that great, since here Matt's been trying not to do the exact same thing), but that only makes it funnier, in a horrible sort of way. Because this sounds more like a fantasy than any of his video games, and the only other option would be to start crying.

_iii_

Mello spends the entire night raging. He doesn't say a word (which probably means he's even more upset than usual) – just sits there in the corner of the room, tense as anything, while Matt tries to sleep off his jet lag. _Tap, tap, tap_ go his fingers erratically against the side of a table, as if that's a suitable outlet for all the anger that's been building up for the last five (fifteen, more like) years. It's one of about a dozen nervous habits he's still indulging in, and Matt can practically hear his mind whirling down every possible pathway.

_Is this what we were being groomed for?_ he wonders idly, twisting around in the bed._ Insane investigations out of cheap hotel rooms… and here's your damned reward: an emotional breakdown?_

He hears the snap of a piece of chocolate breaking, and beneath that he can almost hear the dim echo of the thousand maybes and what ifs that come with an impossible situation.

"Would you quit thinking so loud?" he finally mumbles into his pillow, and the words act like some sort of catalyst like out of that chemistry classroom six years ago that Mello nearly managed to blow up. He launches into a mad tirade, and maybe it's better than the crazed silence, and maybe it's worse. Matt doesn't bother to listen.

Yeah, he knows the situation is serious. Absurd, but serious. He knows that they have to win (though he doubts that they can). He knows that they're going to need a plan, but he figures that that's Mello's gig. He'll just watch as he always has, and if _(when)_ Mello starts to come apart at the seams, he'll do whatever he can to keep things together.

Because he knows – even if Mello hasn't figured it out yet – that that's why he's needed here.

So Matt just shuts his eyes and tries not to laugh, and when he hears that damn crunch of a chocolate bar for the ninth time, he takes the pillow and launches it at Mello's head.

_iv_

When morning comes, Matt is almost surprised to find Mello asleep beside him, tangled in the sheets. One of his arms is thrown haphazardly across Matt's torso, as if personal space is just one more thing he doesn't give a damn about. He's on his side, golden hair fanning around his face and that scar hidden, and for a moment he looks so young again that Matt wants to reach out and touch him—

He doesn't, though. No point in breaking the illusion just yet.

Ten minutes later, Matt's ordering room service and trying not to listen to the way Mello's mumbling incoherently in his sleep. Twenty minutes after that, he's watching Mello drown pancakes in maple syrup, and just thinking that it's nice to see him eating something that not chocolate for once.

"We don't have to do this, you know," he points out when the silence becomes too oppressive. "We could just disappear somewhere. Pretend this never happened." He's good at pretending, even if Mello isn't.

Mello goes still, and for a minute Matt thinks he's about to explode again like he used to back at the House when he didn't like something. But then he deflates slightly instead, and his sudden laugh is harsh but maybe a little bit empty too.

"Yeah," he tells his breakfast, a bizarre smile plastered on his face. "Because Kira is going to be a_ nice_ serial killer and let me walk away from this."

Stupid suggestion anyway, Matt decides. From the mad glint in Mello's eyes, he guesses that he'd rather die than give up now. That he won't accept any outcome except victory.

_And they say I'm the one who's unrealistic,_ Matt thinks. He may have no use for reality, but he's always accepted it – even in situations like this where he's not quite sure what reality even means anymore. Mello doesn't. Mello_ can't_. He won't run away and avoid things or try to forget. No, he'll crash headlong right into reality instead.

Shatter against it.

He probably already has.

Matt thinks that maybe this is why he's still following him. Why he's allowed Mello to walk back into his life, rip him away from everything, and drag him halfway across the world. Because Mello may be many things, but realistic isn't one of them. He's like a broken fairy tale, a mad, skewed glimpse at the real world, and Matt has always preferred stories to life.

"Yeah, well," he says, since that's about all he's willing to put into words right now.

Mello's staring at him now, his eyes sharp and brittle and angry and sad all at once.

"If you want to leave…" he begins, and he probably means for it to be scornful or nonchalant or something equally biting, but there's something else there too. Something that tells Matt that now that Mello's got himself in this deep, he's apparently figured out what everybody else has known all along: he may be independent to a fault, but he's never been a loner.

_Well, shit_, Matt thinks, because if he couldn't walk away when Mello was just a voice on the phone, he sure as hell can't walk away now. "No," he says slowly. "I'll stay."

He never meant to live forever anyway.

_finis_


End file.
